The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
CD Reviews  |  Classical  |  Live Reviews  |  Music Features
Nominate-best-2010

Tale of the tapes

Pacey Foster tells the story of Boston hip-hop
By CHRIS FARAONE  |  November 25, 2009

0911_leccos_main
REPRESENT: Magnus Johnstone (the pale brother, center) debuted Boston radio's first all-rap program at MIT's WMBR in 1985.

Soon after music-minded UMass-Boston management professor Pacey Foster signed on to write a Boston chapter for the most comprehensive hip-hop tome ever compiled, his mission brought him to rural Maine, where it has long been speculated that the Hub rhyme scene's Holy Grail is safely stored.

VIEWPhotos of Boston's hip-hop history
Foster was seeking one elusive Magnus Johnstone, the legendary white hipster college disc jockey who debuted Boston's first all-rap program, Lecco's Lemma, at MIT's student-run WMBR in 1985, and who has since relocated to the backwoods behind Bangor. 

Access to artifacts was essential to the Bean's accurate portrayal in the 1094-page master narrative Hip-Hop in America: A Regional Guide (Greenwood Press), which drops this week following years of research by writers from across the country. (Its release will be celebrated by the Beat Research team Monday at Enormous Room.) Foster's elaborate Bay State account is anchored by his visit to Johnstone's Maine hideaway, where a treasure of cassettes and snapshots was tucked high above his stereo in wooden wine crates.

"It was classic Magnus," says the 42-year-old Foster, who had last seen his old friend in 1999. "He was playing music that I'd never heard before, and painting while we were talking, and the whole time I was dying to ask where the tapes were. Finally, after an hour and a half, he showed me the boxes, and the first thing I pulled out was a handwritten case from FTI (Fresh To Impress) Crew, which was Edo G's group back when he was called Edo Rock. I almost cried."

Foster felt a responsibility toward rap culture, and with that came the need to tap primary sources. He had tuned in religiously to Lecco's Lemma — and he remembers spending hours watching b-boys tear up Harvard Square — but as a white kid from Brookline, he says his direct involvement in hip-hop's heyday was limited to "lamely tagging on the Green Line."

So he studied Johnstone's fossils for traces of the past. Beneath the amateur demos were tales of Boston hip-hop in its infancy, and to fill in the blanks, he conducted interviews with Hub heroes like Lino Delgado of the Floorlords breaking crew, Cindy Diggs of Peace Boston, Rusty "the Toe Jammer" Pendleton of Funky Fresh Records, M.C. Spice, and Edo G. In time, with guidance from such early trend spotters as retail icon Skippy White, the amateur historian also mined the roots of Boston's rap establishment, which Foster links to local funk forefathers including pop producer Maurice Starr's brother Michael Jonzun and current Berklee music engineering prof "Prince" Charles Alexander.

Although Johnstone was just one unlikely player in a budding theater, his show served as Boston hip-hop's epicenter from 1985 to 1987, during which time he invited in and spun singles by the likes of Keithy E. (who would later be known as Guru of Gang Starr), Top Choice Clique, and Ray Dog and Emo E, who soon after found street rap prominence as Benzino and Twice Thou of Almighty R.S.O. By the late '80s, he was being turned off by what he perceived as hip-hop's devolution at the hands of major labels and suburban practitioners — yet his influence remains today. Since Boston didn't get a dedicated commercial rap outlet until JAM'N in 1993 (and because corporate stations mostly ignored local artists, as they do now), regional hip-hop survived solely on college frequencies, from Emerson to Salem State.

1  |  2  |   next >
Related: Erik Deutsch | Hush Money, Photos: History of Boston hip-hop, Getting the story, More more >
  Topics: Music Features , Entertainment, Entertainment, Hip-Hop and Rap,  More more >
  • Share:
  • Share this entry with Facebook
  • Share this entry with Digg
  • Share this entry with Delicious
  • RSS feed
  • Email this article to a friend
  • Print this article
HTML Prohibited
Add Comment

[ 01/30 ]   Big Shot [Billy Joel tribute]  @ Wolf Den @ Mohegan Sun
[ 01/30 ]   Melissa Ferrick  @ Center for Arts In Natick
[ 01/30 ]   Newton Community Chorus  @ Our Lady of Help Christians Church
[ 01/30 ]   DJ Turbz + DJ Uptown  @ Revolution Rock Bar
ARTICLES BY CHRIS FARAONE
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   FRESH VETZ | VET STATUS  |  January 27, 2010
    It's a bright sign for hip-hop when at least three promising subterranean sluggers ride flows comparable to that of the almighty Nas.
  •   BOSTON TEEN IN HAITI STRANDED WITHOUT A COUNTRY  |  January 27, 2010
    Jenny Ulysee was inside her stepmother's hair salon in Mariani, Haiti, when the January 12 earthquake caused a nearby building to buckle and collapse onto the roof of her family's business.
  •   MASSACHUSETTS: YOU MIGHT BE LIVING IN A RED STATE IF  |  January 25, 2010
    Scott Brown’s Senatorial victory is merely the latest sign that red tides are creeping upon our once-progressive Commonwealth. Don’t believe us? Consider that Kenny Chesney sells out Gillette Stadium every summer, and, of course, that wealthy Republican presidential hopeful with the fantastic hair was recently our Governor.
  •   AFTERSHOCK  |  January 20, 2010
    From the second that the Richter scale registered at 7.0 in Haiti, a desperate grief rippled through Hyde Park, Dorchester, and other corners of this region, which is home to the third-largest Haitian population in America.
  •   MAN AT WORK  |  January 20, 2010
    It's easy to manufacture illusions of rap stardom. Any MySpace whiteboy with a few grand can fill a mixtape with big cameos, and for a little more, guests will even shout his name out. But though such pay-for-spray practices have kept established artists eating they've also compromised the organic dynamics that once pushed the genre forward.

 See all articles by: CHRIS FARAONE

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2010 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group